Simple tricks of vision

Jeff Hecht

We take the human eye for granted, but it is a remarkably powerful and sophisticated optical system. The array of optical sensors that form the retina are connected to a pattern recognition system far more powerful than the fastest supercomputer—the vision center of the human brain. The eye and the brain together give us an extremely detailed picture of the world, compensating smoothly for some of their own limitations. However, a few simple experiments can reveal some of the eye's limits.